The inventive concepts relate to a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus and a method of operating the same. More particularly, the inventive concepts relate to a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PE-CVD) apparatus and a method of operating the same.
Semiconductor devices are widely used in an electronic industry because of their small sizes, multi-functional characteristics, and/or low manufacture costs. Semiconductor devices may be manufactured using various semiconductor manufacturing processes, such as deposition processes, ion implantation processes, photolithography processes, and etching processes. Some of these semiconductor manufacturing processes may utilize plasma, including plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PE-CVD processes.
As semiconductor devices have become more integrated, structures of the semiconductor devices have become more complex. In addition, sizes of wafers used to manufacture semiconductor devices have been increased to improve productivity of semiconductor devices. Thus, various problems of the semiconductor manufacturing processes may be caused.
In some cases, where a semiconductor manufacturing process utilizes plasma, including plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PE-CVD processes, the plasma concentration over a substrate during a deposition process may be uneven, which can result in reduced thickness uniformity of layers deposited on the substrate. Reduced layer thickness uniformity can result in layer reliability which is less than ideal.